Bend and Lift

[optom]

Hi guys . Was just reading in another post there and a lot of you guys wetre saying do not bend over or do heavy lifting ??I WAS NEVER TOLD THIS typical . what is considered heavy lifting and am i in danger bending down to a shoe lace etc .........

[Andrew MacLean]

To fasten shoelaces, it is probably best to sit down and bring your foot closer.

Heavey lifting is lifting anything that isn't light! I guess we were left to work that one out for ourselves; anything that involves strain may be heavy, and lifting stuff (like a bunch of grapes or a cup of tea) that does not involve any strain is 'light'.

The leaflet that they gave me when I was discharged from hospital was full of neat little 'do's' and 'don'ts'. No sport, no heavy lifting, no bending etc for the first 4 - 6 weeks. At my 4 week assessment I asked the doc and he more or less gave me permission to go back to a normal lifestyle but he did advise me to stay away from the resistance machines at the gym for another couple of months.

I had no difficulty following that advice.


Andrew

[rosemary johnson]

Lifting a kettle to put it on to make tea is fine.
Lifting a bale of hale to get tea for your horse isn't.
Fykkvyxjwra if ATER AREN'T TOO GOOD AN IDEA EITHER.
yOU CAN TLEL IF IT IS "TOO HEAVY|" COS AS SOON AS YOU START TO LIFT IT, YOU CAN FEEL THE STRAIN IN YOUR EYE.
aT LEAST, i COULD.
mEANWHILE, BE GLAD OF THE EXCUSE TO GET SOMEONE ELSE TO TAKE OUT THE RUBBISH/RECYCLING CRATE.
rOSEMARY

[GarethB]

When it comes to what is really manual handling what is heavy for one person may be excessive to another. When I had my grafts 20 years ago I was warned about heavy lifting but bails of hey and straw were no problem. We put most strain on our selves if we lift incorrectly, like bending the back and lifting an object with arms out straight.

Eye op or not common sense is to crouch down or be seated to tie shoe laces, same goes for picking objects up from the floor liked dropped keys. It is easy to manintain balance when picking up small objects from the floor and less strenous if you stand over an object such as dropped pen so it is under you and just bend your knees with your arm straight down. You will pick up the pen almost first time everytime never over balanencing. No strain on the back or gain in eye pressure.

Heavier objects pull close in towards you and use your legs and i never had a problem post graft. Donor cornea is the healthiest part of my eyes.

Like most things in life, use your common sense and be sensible, first sign of trouble when lifting just drop it, material items can be replaced, fixing a damaged graft is harder.

[rosemary johnson]

No problems lifting bales of hay and straw, Gareth????
Like to come out to our yard and move the bales for us??
Seriously.... it's not picking A bale oup off the floor that (used to) give me problems; it's etting them out of the trailer and piling them on top of the stack in the store room. And getting them of that stack and carrying them out the store.
Now I struggle witht hem whatever the journey - but that's the steroid problems.
There's a guy at the farm our yard manager goes to get the hay and straw who just tosses the bales about as if they were made of foam - just up on top of the stack, tosses them down, piles them up onto the trailer (flatbed trailer) and ropes them down, and all as if no weight at all.
Wood shaving bales are worse - denser than hay so each bale heavier, and no baler twine to grab hold of (or to wrech your fingers). At least they don't set off the asthma like the hay does!
For a while after the op, I had to get someone to lift them onto the weelbarrow for me.
Just had to learn from experience (of the eye feeling it was "pulling") when I'd loaded the wheelbarrow of wet used wood shavings too full.
You do get the feel of these things.
Rosemary

[Loopy-Lou]

"No sport, no heavy lifting, no bending etc for the first 4 - 6 weeks. At my 4 week assessment I asked the doc and he more or less gave me permission to go back to a normal lifestyle but he did advise me to stay away from the resistance machines at the gym for another couple of months"

This to my mind seems the most sensible advise, to ease up for 2-3 months is not asking for much out of lifetime